Top Ten Knowledge Base Articles for Outlook Developers

Jim Groves
Microsoft Corporation

September 1999

Applies To: Microsoft® Outlook® 97, 98, and 2000

Summary: Our Microsoft® Outlook® expert, Jim Groves, dove deep into Microsoft Product Support's treasure chest of product knowledge, tips, tricks, and workarounds and surfaced with this list of the ten most valuable topics for Outlook developers. (4 printed pages)

Q&A: Questions About Customizing or Programming Outlook

Even seasoned Microsoft® Visual Basic® and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) developers can find it hard to get started working with the Microsoft Outlook® extensibility environment. This article helps developers avoid the common pitfalls encountered by newcomers.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q170/7/83.asp

How to Use Fields and Controls with VBScript

One of the hardest concepts for new Outlook developers to understand is the relationship between fields and properties. This article explains how to use fields and controls with Microsoft Visual Basic, Scripting Edition (VBScript), what fields are, and how you use item properties to get at those fields.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q182/3/62.asp

Working with Keywords Fields from VBScript

Working with a keywords field is tricky because it does not work as you might expect. This article shows how to work with keywords fields and their limitations.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q182/3/87.asp

Working with the Message or Body of an Outlook Item

The Message, or Notes, field of an Outlook item is one of the item's most important elements. This article describes techniques for working with the contents of this field.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q183/2/09.asp

Syntax to Access Controls on a User-Designed Form

Once you've added new controls to your form, how do you get to them in the form's VBScript code? This article shows the syntax required to access controls on an Outlook form.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q158/1/06.asp

Supported Outlook Form Control Events

One of the most frustrating restrictions of Outlook forms is the limited number of events that Outlook supports. This article lists those events and explains how to make the most of them.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q180/8/57.asp

Bound Control Does Not Support Click Event

When you are developing an Outlook form, you may be puzzled by the way the behavior of controls changes when they are bound to a field. This article explains what happens when the Click event seems to stop working after certain controls are bound to a field and how to work around this behavior.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q181/2/16.asp

Why Outlook Displays a Security Warning When Opening an Item

When a form contains VBScript and also comes from an untrusted source, Outlook displays a security warning to users who are about to open the form. This article explains what sources are and are not trusted, and how a form that starts out trusted can end up untrusted.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q182/3/76.asp

Custom Forms and Programming Limitations

Some Outlook forms are readily customizable, whereas others are not. In addition, some features of built-in Outlook forms cannot be used when you are creating custom forms. This article points out these and other limitations of custom Outlook forms so that you can avoid them.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q182/4/02.asp

Cannot Change the Default Mail Message Form

If you've designed a form that you'd like all your incoming mail to use, but you can't get it to work, this article explains why.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q180/8/58.asp